Questions for Worldviews

This article was originally published in 2016 as part of our one hundredth newsletter. A lot has happened in the world since then, but this truth remains the same: The Bible has the answers. 

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Everyone has a worldview, and every worldview has questions that it must answer. The truth will naturally produce the best and most sensible answers, and the Bible does just that. The Bible gives direct responses to many questions in life, while laying a foundation for accurately explaining others. What follows are nine worldview questions that we often answer at the museum.

Why is There Good in the World?

As funny as it may sound, every worldview must account for the good things in the world. They must explain such things as the marks of apparent design, the existence of symbiotic relationships, and the presence of beauty in our universe. The biblical worldview lays a good foundation for answering this basic question, and it points directly to creation. Of course, creation can only be of the high quality we find if the Creator meets certain criteria, namely, that He is good (Ps. 100:5), wise (Rom. 11:33), and all-powerful (Jer. 32:17). Seeing that this is the biblical description of God, the existence of compound eyes, peacock tails, and classical music all make sense in the light of supernatural creation.

Why is There Evil?

However, the natural world reveals plenty of examples that don’t seem to fit the creation account and our concept of God, and we must answer why. I recently had some less-than-successful moments on the farm, resulting in several speedy transports to our creatures’ final resting places. Surely this isn’t a part of God’s design! Again, the Bible gives the answer, this time through the account of man’s fall into sin (Gen. 3). At that point, mankind’s relationship with God was broken, and things like suffering, death, disease, and thorns became a part of daily life. Simply put, evil is not the result of God’s creation, but rather of human sin.

Why do We Find Rocks the Way We Do?

Anyone who comes to Branson has to admit: there’s a lot of rock! Road cuts expose thick walls of layers, yet layers are now observed to form quite slowly. Mere thousands of years (as found in the biblical genealogies) could not produce the large volumes of sedimentary rock on our planet. However, Scripture again reveals the cause of this, and the explanation centers on the Flood of Noah’s day. The Lord judged the violent sinfulness of mankind with a year-long, mountain-covering deluge, and this (like the example of Mt. Saint Helens¹) would do incredible amounts of deposition and erosion in a very limited time-frame. Given that we find a number of things in the geologic record that had to have formed quickly, the biblical narrative provides the best way to explain the evidence.

Why Are so Many Languages Spoken?

“Ahora, pues, descendamos, y confundamos alli su lengua, para ninguno entienda el habla de su compañero.”² If you are like most people reading this newsletter, that last sentence wasn’t very helpful to you, yet it does set the stage for discussing the diversity of languages. The account of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9) shows us that the division of the one, original language into several language families was a supernatural event. God was again dealing with man’s disobedience, and this confusion of the languages provided the rebels with a more urgent impetus for obeying God’s command to disperse.

Why are There Different People Groups?

Babel also gives us the framework for explaining the different people groups throughout the world. Put simply, all the human genetic information was still present at Babel, and this would likely provide for a lot of variety, even within the same family. However, after the confusion of the languages, the human race began to scatter across the earth, most likely by the family groups mentioned in Genesis 10. Not all the families would have had all the genetic diversity, and they would have lost even more of this diversity the further they were isolated from the other groups. After a good number of generations, some of these family groups would be quite different from each other. And in support of the original diversity at Babel, there are places in the world today that still have this variety at the family level.³

Why did the Dinosaurs go Extinct?

Although it is possible that several dinosaur species have yet to go extinct (from some reported evidence), extinction seems to be the general rule, and it must be accounted for. Dinosaurs, as land animals, would have been on the ark, and the Bible even speaks of some after the Flood (e.g. Behemoth in Job 40:15-24), so there must have been a more recent cause. However, the Flood does lay a foundation for their eventual demise. This includes the small numbers leaving the ark (two of every kind), the radical climate change following, and the great reduction in plant life as evidenced by the coal reserves. With numbers kept to a low by these factors, humans and post-Flood catastrophes could very well have added the finishing touches to the dinosaurs’ final chapter.

Why are We Here?

Yet, God certainly created the dinosaurs with a purpose, and from the Bible we realize that we were created with even more of a purpose. We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27), and the Bible makes it clear that He desires our worship (John 4:23), fellowship (John 17; 2 Cor. 6:16-18), and obedience (Jer. 7:22-23; 1 Sam. 15:22). We are all to glorify God, and He has given us the wonderful opportunity to fulfill our individual callings accompanied by His abiding presence, and according to the unique way He has created us.

Where are We Going?

Although we have such a glorious position in God’s creation, having the ability to commune with our Creator, this fellowship was broken on that dark day of man’s disobedience. The Fall affected not only the physical world, but also the spiritual world, separating man from God. Our sin requires judgment, and this judgment is ultimately eternal separation in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15). This would have left us without hope, but then we hear one of the best word-pairs in the Bible: “but God” (Eph. 2:4-7). Christ has purchased our salvation through His death on the cross, and He offers it by grace to all who will have “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). We can now joyously look forward to the time when we enter into our eternal home with Him, never again to be separated.

What can We Do?

As Isaac Watts put it, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” Out of such gratitude, a desire to serve the Lord naturally springs forth in His children. One of the many ways in which we can serve is in the battle for the foundations, answering some of life’s biggest questions from the book of Genesis. This is a frontlines area in the battle for western civilization.

Speak the truth in love

So how can you further God’s kingdom in this area of the battlefield? First, keep us in your prayers, as our human strength is far below adequate. Then, give yourselves fully over to the Lord, and help out as He leads (2 Cor. 8:5). Learn the truth, share the truth, and defend the truth in the way our wonderful Savior has designed and gifted you. The life of obedience and service is much more exciting and rewarding than books can tell… And does He deserve anything less?